'Old Reliable' or 'Core' Cold Process Recipes

[Savage Daughter]

Good to know! Thanks for the feedback!

The slurry of castor oil & clays, as well as marinating my mixed dry botanicals in the base of castor / clay / essential oils as long as possible, is an absolutely stellar way to fix the scent, extend its longevity, and seems to be working so that all 3 slowly & gradually release the essential oil components into the environment the soap is in. This alone has already motivated many people to ask if they can place private orders. I give them a tester bar & they call asking to buy, every single time. Their first comment is THE SCENT! and next HOW BEAUTIFUL! using natural colorants exclusively.

Not only that, I am not experiencing drag marks or other types of marring from my botanicals when I cut when I give the castor / essential oil blend time to soften them up, and experience no brown bloom around botanical particles. Brown bloom tends to be ubiquitous, not to mention accepted, in other botanical-type soaps which I see when doing local market research. So the benefit of doing the above is far-reaching. Yeah, it's only soap, but it's PROFESSIONAL looking & smelling soap, which is huge. Pair that with the packaging & marketing & this stuff is amazing, if I do say so myself Every piece of the puzzle gradually comes together

So yes, I've said it before & will keep saying it THANK YOU for sharing your experience with this. I sincerely hope more people try this, because it DOES work!

I do try to take your advice, I swear.

I did two other batches on July 4, both exactly 500 grams of oil. Here are the results. The 72% is the dark bar (I assume red, but I'm badly colorblind and it looks dark brown to me... it has madder root in it),

Wow, BEAUTIFUL result from madder root! Not to mention the honkingly HUGE bars! How many grams are those puppies?? How long do you think they'll take to cure? That's always a concern for me when I start cutting things more thickly.

How did you end up using your madder root? Dry & straight in? Oil infusion? Water hydrated? Into the lye? Would love to know how you're doing things I have not yet tested it straight into the lye because I always do multi-colored soaps, but one day

I used this colorant yesterday in combination with a little bit of smoked paprika infused oil & pink clay for a nice earthy orange-ish tone, as well as a deep forest green & cool brown tones, a bit of charcoal sprinkled lightly here & there for definition of design elements. That slab is still cooking at the moment. I am always super stoked to see the results when gelling has completed. I think this one may not be ready for unmolding until tomorrow judging by the heat retention factor.

You are really doing an awesome job with your experimentation

 

[SSC Oregon]

Ok, I need help understanding the castor oil/clay/eo slurry concept. If anyone wants to point me in the direction of a thread, video, article - I would be super grateful.

Day 2 of soaping with my huge FO from nurture. Good labels, good fragrances... Second day of headaches though
My ventilation needs to be better in my workshop.

I've tested 7 of 14 scents. I'm really pleased with them so far.

Will do photos and write up on Friday.

 

[Tammyfarms]

Have you tried the Aroy-D brand? Nothing but coconut and water - no gums, which are super hard on my digestive system.

My favorite also!

Being miserly with anything begets more of the same. Being generous & open, whether with information or whatever a person is capable of sharing, also begets more of the same.

I agree completely! I used to teach a class where we discussed abundance mentality versus scarcity mentality. I prefer abundance mentality.

 

[Kiti Williams]

I do try to take your advice, I swear.

I did two other batches on July 4, both exactly 500 grams of oil. Here are the results. The 72% is the dark bar (I assume red, but I'm badly colorblind and it looks dark brown to me... it has madder root in it), and the Zany's No-Slime Castile is the cream bar. I somehow squashed the silicone mold during setup (perhaps a cat slept on top of the insulating towel). The sugar skulls are my tester bars. My testers have told me they like smaller bars so they can give feedback faster. I was really impressed that CP soap left such sharp impressions from an intricate mold like that. Very pleased with that, and the color looks like something I worked hard for, but it's just the EVOO.

LOVE the Sugar Skulls!

 

[Savage Daughter]

I agree completely! I used to teach a class where we discussed abundance mentality versus scarcity mentality. I prefer abundance mentality.

Likewise. I used to go to markets in the 90s with my soaps & other products & was doing quite well making my way along in the soaping world, but I quickly stopped because there was a lot of bad vibes from other soap makers at the same markets, especially when they saw another soaper was doing well - read 'a threat to them'. I decided right there that I didn't wish to be around that energy & began creating my first ever website showcasing my products, long before I got into serious IT, marketing & design work online. Those soap makers actually did me a big favour

At that time, nobody wished to be supportive of each other, nobody was interested in behaving as a community, nobody wanted to share tips with each other, or to even share where they got their packaging, molds, what-have-you. People were being threatened by other soap making businesses with legal action for simply SHARING recipes, formulations & techniques, claiming they had the proprietary right to those recipes & techniques. I myself once received a legal threat via email after sharing information in a forum as I was trying to help somebody with their bath bombs due to the type of spritzing liquid which I mentioned for god's sake! It was appalling.

I am so grateful to all of the soapers who now share openly, and to the various product formulators who are teaching openly, and to those who are willingly sharing their design techniques, who are behaving as community members. Sure, I understand that we all wish to keep certain things to ourselves, especially those things we have worked long & hard on to perfect, myself included, but we still have so much collective knowledge which we can choose to share, which helps us all move forward, in support of each other.

Ultimately, the stronger we all become as a community - and this goes for life in general, including the human collective / community - the happier, healthier, more joyful we all are, and the more abundance we all have flowing into our lives. Life isn't a competition. It's a collective experience. Why not make it great for everyone? Everyone wins. Nobody loses.

 

[SSC Oregon]

Amen, Quasi!

 

[Jorah]

Wow, BEAUTIFUL result from madder root! Not to mention the honkingly HUGE bars! How many grams are those puppies?? How long do you think they'll take to cure? That's always a concern for me when I start cutting things more thickly.

How did you end up using your madder root? Dry & straight in? Oil infusion? Water hydrated? Into the lye? Would love to know how you're doing things I have not yet tested it straight into the lye because I always do multi-colored soaps, but one day

I used this colorant yesterday in combination with a little bit of smoked paprika infused oil & pink clay for a nice earthy orange-ish tone, as well as a deep forest green & cool brown tones, a bit of charcoal sprinkled lightly here & there for definition of design elements. That slab is still cooking at the moment. I am always super stoked to see the results when gelling has completed. I think this one may not be ready for unmolding until tomorrow judging by the heat retention factor.

You are really doing an awesome job with your experimentation

Thanks for your kind words, QQ!

The red cubes are 2" (50.80 mm), and my test bar weighs 140 grams a week and a half out from the day it was made.

I followed the instructions in Pure Soapmaking (I think it was) and used a milk frother to blend the madder root powder with a small outtake from my oils, and added it after getting everything else well blended with my immersion blender. I then did a few more seconds of blending, stirring, and scraping of the bottom and sides of the soap pot, then poured into the molds. I need a stronger microblender/frother, though. The one I have bogs down even in cream, and I thought I was gonna kill it on the powder/oil mix!

Nice, this is the first time I've come across this idea.

@Zany_in_CO , here's the result of my first use of 'Cure Cards,' working with the three batches I made on July 4. Unfortunately, the data set isn't complete, because I didn't weigh them the first day, but the curves are still interesting. The small bar of Castile lost a lot the first day, then joined the big bars in their slow evaporation rate. All weights done on an electronic scale set to 100ths of a gram, and all numbers converted to percentages to allow comparisons. Next time I make soap I'll weigh my sample bars as soon as they come out of the mold.

Percentages

Date	Savon du Bon Pere Chat (madder root) (%)	Charcoal & Pumice (%)	Castile (%)
7/6/2023​	1.000​	1.000​	1.000​
7/7/2023​	0.992​	0.987​	0.963​
7/8/2023​	0.985​	0.978​	0.959​
7/9/2023​	0.980​	0.972​	0.955​
7/10/2023​	0.974​	0.965​	0.951​
7/11/2023​	0.971​	0.961​	0.948​
7/12/2023​	0.968​	0.958​	0.946​
7/13/2023​	0.965​	0.954​	0.943​
7/14/2023​	0.962​	0.952​	0.941​
7/15/2023​	0.960​	0.949​	0.940​

Grams:

Date	Savon du Bon Pere Chat (madder root) (grams)	Charcoal & Pumice (grams)	Castile (grams)
7/6/2023​	145.69​	130.75​	95.05​
7/7/2023​	144.49​	129.04​	91.56​
7/8/2023​	143.50​	127.88​	91.12​
7/9/2023​	142.81​	127.09​	90.80​
7/10/2023​	141.92​	126.17​	90.37​
7/11/2023​	141.46​	125.69​	90.13​
7/12/2023​	141.00​	125.22​	89.89​
7/13/2023​	140.54​	124.75​	89.65​
7/14/2023​	140.20​	124.45​	89.48​
7/15/2023​	139.86​	124.14​	89.30​

 

[Zany_in_CO]

Oh WOW! That's awesome! A lot more complicated than what i use but great for research! At this point you can weigh once a week instead of daily. I look forward to reading when they stop losing weight, i.e., when the evaporation ceases.

 

[Jorah]

Oh WOW! That's awesome! A lot more complicated than what i use but great for research! At this point you can weigh once a week instead of daily. I look forward to reading when they stop losing weight, i.e., when the evaporation ceases.

Yeah, I love using Excel for stuff like this. I calculated a few things to fill in gaps and make the curves smoother, so I wouldn't submit this to a scientist, but as back-of-the-envelope calculations go, it's valid. The curve is definitely flattening out. The bars have lost about 1.5 - 2.5 points in the last week. I imagine that if I bumped these numbers up against the water percentage used in each batch, I'd find that the 'wet' batches (high water percentage of oil weight) are the ones that drop quickly. Maybe I'll do that test later in the summer.

 

[cmzaha]

Carolyn, Do you use unrefined shea in this recipe? It’s coming out as 34 for longevity in the SMF c@lculator, which is more palmitic + stearic than I usually use, but maybe the unsaponifiables in the shea make it a bit softer?

Yes, I use unrefined. I always purchased in bulk.

 

[Mobjack Bay]

Yes, I use unrefined. I always purchased in bulk.

Thank you! I remembered that, but not until after I asked the question.

 

[Tammyfarms]

Life isn't a competition. It's a collective experience. Why not make it great for everyone? Everyone wins. Nobody loses.

Love that you found the bright side of a pretty awful experience! I am so thankful to the forum members who share information so readily and I do understand wanting to protect something that took a great deal of time to develop. @QuasiQuadrant thank you for sharing the information on the slurry you developed to get EO’s to stick. I whipped up a batch today and am going to make a batch of soap with it tomorrow.

 

[Savage Daughter]

Love that you found the bright side of a pretty awful experience!

There is a gift in every seemingly situation, in every horrible situation, in every situation which may seem insurmountable - no matter how 'impossible' things may seem on the surface - whether people choose to believe that or not. We can choose to find the gift & use it to our advantage, or not. Gifts are always there, staring us in the face, waiting for us to take notice of them & put them to use.

I am so thankful to the forum members who share information so readily and I do understand wanting to protect something that took a great deal of time to develop.

Me too, and yes, there are things I choose to keep to myself. There's nothing wrong with that. But at the same time, I can choose to share something else, as people have shared with me. That always gets the energy of abundance flowing around us & straight to us.

@QuasiQuadrant thank you for sharing the information on the slurry you developed to get EO’s to stick. I whipped up a batch today and am going to make a batch of soap with it tomorrow.

Awesome, I hope it works as well for you as it does for me

A word on something I have found: there are times through the curing process when I can notice that the essential oils are supposedly fading....but they're not, actually. They're morphing into their final iteration, as the soap is doing its own morphing into its final form, if you know what I mean. Some soaps I had thought in the beginning 'WOW!' then a few weeks later 'Yeah, not so great' but then a few weeks later 'You're back!'. 'Believe it or not' People can try it for themselves. It may be connected to the weather, humidity or various other environmental factors where I live. I really don't know. I also use sugar or honey in my soaps, and have recently switched from sodium lactate to just plain salt after someone else mentioned this, and sometimes combine both the sweet & salty in my batches, all of which works out very well.

I have no idea what would happen when using fragrance oils, just saying for anyone who might want to try it. Do so at your own risk I love that I am able to dial back the amount of essential oils I am using, for sure. That's another bonus for me

Good luck

Thanks for your kind words, QQ!

Seriously, that is a BEAUTIFUL result from madder root. My next pink will be coming from dock, which a kind neighbour allowed me to forage a mountain from in her yard. She even held off moving her knee high grass until I could come & pick I am feeling super excited about the dock!

The red cubes are 2" (50.80 mm), and my test bar weighs 140 grams a week and a half out from the day it was made.

I would be interested to know how long those bars take to cure in the end. I hadn't planned on doing any cubes, but someone may ask one day, so this would be good to know so I could give them an approximate turn around time.

I followed the instructions in Pure Soapmaking (I think it was) and used a milk frother to blend the madder root powder with a small outtake from my oils, and added it after getting everything else well blended with my immersion blender. I then did a few more seconds of blending, stirring, and scraping of the bottom and sides of the soap pot, then poured into the molds. I need a stronger microblender/frother, though. The one I have bogs down even in cream, and I thought I was gonna kill it on the powder/oil mix!

Looorrdddd....those milk frothers I bought a battery powered one & it wouldn't even mix my essential oils with just a little bit of clay. Absolutely useless. I saw another soapmaker on YouTube had a corded one, which seems significantly more powerful, but I have yet been able to find one myself. THAT is one piece of equipment I would very much love to have.

I have stopped taking oils from my batch oil for my colorants, and even add an extra unweighed bit of avocado oil & my castor oil for my essential oil slurry, which I am sure will have some people thinking 'my god, what are you doing?' I just look at it as a little bit of extra super fat, especially in my 16 pound batches, which has not caused me any problems. I use a 5% superfat already, so it might bump it up to 8? I don't know & don't care at the moment simply because it's working for me, and people love the soap. It's also not sitting outside in the heat at farmers markets, they're on store shelves, so not something that's a concern for me at the moment.

I look forward to seeing more of your natural colorant experiments!

 

[melinda48]

Yeah, it's exotic at first, and then reality sets in

Things like the garbage guy being unwilling to cart your garbage away if you don't give him a little bit of corruption money (and then you get overrun with literal gutter rats), and the neighbourhood security guard who will break into your house with buddies when you go out of town for a couple of days if you don't give him a bit of kickback too, the mail delivery guy needs cut as well, and so does the guy who comes to hook up your cable or satellite dish, along with what is called an RT (kind of like a head of a regional district), police who might stop you because you stand out just because of your skin color who also want their bit, and the neighbouring businesses who will threaten your children if you start doing a higher volume of business than them when you move into the area, and god forbid if you want to get married or get a drivers license or buy a house (these are whole other cans of whoopass that are not enjoyable to deal with ) because everyone including the government officials, hospital officlals, doctors, immigration officials, your local RT & the local religious men want their 'donation', or else you suffer the consequences....and the list goes on

My students at the time - extracurricular language classes outside of public & private schools - told me about the fact that their parents even had to give some kickback money to their teachers every year to have their new school textbooks for the year released to them. The corruption goes deep....VERY deep, and you have to learn to work within that system in order to have any type of 'normal' life there. Hence, the majority of people have little choice but to perpetuate the corruption themselves, simply because they have never experienced any other manner of functioning within their society. Things have changed on the surface since I left there, the public image of the country has improved in many ways, but the mindset & manner of day-to-day functioning there for the vast majority of people hasn't. The corruption still runs deep.

That said, it is amazingly beautiful, and I did meet some very good people there who I still miss, very much so, who I became very close to. But life is a struggle for everyone there, especially the local people....except maybe the expats with their drivers / maids / housing compounds / US dollar salaries paid by large oil & mining companies etc, but even they have to pay the gravy train LOL

10 years was enough. I saw a lot, ate amazing food, experienced what little is left of the original cultures after various religions came in & destroyed traditional practices, worked there, ran a business there, made a lot of friends, but also went through some hellish times there as well. I can't see myself ever wanting to move back to the country, even though I learned to speak the language & spent most of time with the local people.

So 'exotic'.... ....on the surface it seems so. But it is also be a major struggle. One hell of a life experience, to say the least I am waiting on my next destination to call me at this point.

In the meantime, I am launching my line of products step by step until that happens

My sister’s husband was in the Air Force (career-man) and he was an attaché to the US Embassy there for four years. They shared your experience-even being military. When they left the compound they would hire someone to watch their car and then have to hire another person to watch the person they had hired to watch the watcher. All in all a good experience but corruption ran rampant.

@Obsidian This is the result of my July 4 batch inspired by your '50% lard, 20% coconut, 25% safflower, 5% castor' recipe. I had no safflower, but did have some sunflower which looks to have similar qualities on SoapCalc. The making went very smoothly. I got 18 chunky bars out 2,324 grams of oil. I added activated charcoal and pumice to make a scrubby bar. I also used Zany's 'faux sea water' mix for the water portion. It unmolded nicely at 24 hours and was hard to the touch at 48 hours. I'm very pleased with it! This isn't a deep black because I was trying to keep the charcoal to a level where the suds shouldn't be too gray. I used a blog post by the 'Nerdy Farmwife' as my resource there. thenerdyfarmwife.com/charcoal-in-soap/ .

I haven't tried the soap yet, but it looks great so far.

looks great!

 

[GGMA0317]

I just do what works for me. I don't follow anybody's way of doing things, although I pick up good ideas here & there which I temporarily implement. By temporarily, I mean I try those ideas out, and if they just don't jibe with how I feel or the way I do things, I modify the ideas to suit me or discard the ideas altogether.

The index cards, because they're brightly coloured, help me do a quick scan-at-a-glance when I have someone call / email & ask what I have available, or when I'll have something available, along with important stuff as to which additives I used. It also keeps me on top of when I need to make a 'refill' batch. Some wholesale customers want no palm, or no silk batches or a mix, so I write clearly which batches have no palm. I cater to everyone except the fragrance oil scent crowd, not just the vegans & no-palm-people. I am planning on trying lard for the first time, as well as goats milk.

I strongly suggest finding your own 'best way' of doing things because you'll be much happier along your soaping / formulating journey that way What may make total sense for someone else may not for you. Personally, the last thing I want near me is a spreadsheet when I'm soaping or formulating because I work in IT & graphic design. I don't need any reminders of computers to jack up my creation process. I use a good old fashioned notebook for my formulations as I formulate & work better when I physically write things down vs typing them out. This triggers different areas of my brain - the creative part. I back all of my formulations up digitally on my EXTERNAL hard drive (computers break / fail / get highjacked) as time permits using soap calc & then saving my formulas in PDF format, or use my own text files (for body care related formulations).

Another word of advice - don't save your stuff to cloud servers ie. Google Drive / One Drive etc. Security-wise they are a nightmare. And when you don't have internet access / power / your computer / phone / whatever the case may be, you're screwed Old fashioned notebooks - the ones you write in - rock Or simply print everything out & make some extra copies to tuck away somewhere in case of emergency. Fires & pipes bursting DO happen, so plan ahead.

Good luck figuring out what works for you

While reading this, I thought I was sleep posting. I agree with of what you wrote.

Also, the op has the basics-that & time is really all he needs to find his way beyond the boards.

 

[Savage Daughter]

My sister’s husband was in the Air Force (career-man) and he was an attaché to the US Embassy there for four years. They shared your experience-even being military. When they left the compound they would hire someone to watch their car and then have to hire another person to watch the person they had hired to watch the watcher. All in all a good experience but corruption ran rampant.

Yes, if the watcher isn't being watched....you never know what you'll find when you get back...if anything You may find all of the watchers long gone, along with your belongings This is what daily poverty, from birth to death, does to people, no matter which country we are talking about. People will always do what they deem necessary to survive, this goes for all of us. They are not to blame for that. The powers-that-be are.

There is only one branch of military the local people are truly terrified of there because they are the ones who are sent in to do the no-holds-barred-nobody's-looking slaughtering in Indonesian provinces which will not comply with what the rulers in Jakarta demand....the rest of the branches of military are kinda viewed as lightweights in comparison. Those guys are pretty emotionally disturbed, as well as disturbing to have a conversation with. Not an experience I wish to repeat, very unsettling, but definitely on of those once-in-a-lifetime learning experiences.

I learned a lot from my ex-journalist ex-husband & his lawyer father, let me tell you, as well as just by spending time with local friends in the villages. Probably the most surreal 10 years of my entire life

 

[SSC Oregon]

I love hearing people's experiences.

 

[Jorah]

@Zany_in_CO

I have some further number crunching to share. I've changed the 'day by day' chart to a weekly measure. The curves on all three sample bars are very similar, with the cube losing weight the most slowly, and the small, thin bar losing weight the fastest. I'll continue to weigh in once a week until they stop losing weight. I'm not sure yet how flat the curve will have to be before I declare the water loss process finished! I've decided that I like the madder root cubes enough that I'm going to make another batch this weekend, as I didn't have enough batter the first time to make a full 9-cube batch, and I want more for my testers.

Date	Savon du Bon Pere Chat (madder root)	Charcoal & Pumice	Castile
7/6/2023​	1.000​	1.000​	1.000​
7/8/2023​	0.985​	0.978​	0.959​
7/15/2023​	0.960​	0.949​	0.940​
7/22/2023​	0.945​	0.935​	0.927​

 

[Ech0s]

I like big batches and I cannot lye.